News

Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer

Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), Professor Errol Miller, yesterday announced the start of an active process to flesh out legislation aimed at governing campaign financing.

Miller told a press conference that his team was in the process of inviting individuals and groups to make submissions to the ECJ on their views on campaign financing.

He disclosed that among the organisations targeted are non-governmental organisations, trade unions, and major donors to political parties.

Addressing a press conference with the selected members of the commission present, Miller asserted that the thrust to craft a legislative framework coincides with a regional meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston today.

The high-level meeting, which promises to showcase legislation on campaign financing from other jurisdictions, is scheduled to end tomorrow.

The ECJ chairman disclosed that his team had given itself a firm timetable to complete the process in three months.

"We wish to complete the exercise by December," said Miller.

This should come as welcome news to many local political personalities, observers and analysts, who have been clamouring for legislation to govern campaign financing.

Miller firmly defended the ECJ's decision to push for limited instead of full disclosure of donors in its recently completed draft legislation on political party registration and financing.

Likely repercussions

He argued that there was legitimate fear among donors, not just in Jamaica but in other countries, of donors being identified because of likely repercussions.

"We mulled over this process for a long time and we thought that going the route of limited instead of full disclosure was the way to go at this time," Miller said.

He challenged proponents of the full disclosure concept to lead by example.

"If we are not just seeking to score political points but each seeking to develop this country, you who believe in full disclosure must practise that."

The proposed legislation stipulates that, to qualify for state funding, a party has to be in receipt of five per cent of the votes cast at the previous general election or 50,000 signatures.

"For the first time in our laws we are requiring political parties to be registered and we will keep a registry of all political parties," Miller noted.

He said the requirements to be registered as a political party are minimal.

"No great obstacle is put in the way of being registered, but there are certain basic minimum requirements that you must meet."

The failure of Parliament to entrench the ECJ into the Constitution, four years after it came into existence, has not escaped the members of the commission.

Miller produced documentary evidence to prove that the team he heads had been unrelenting in its effort to have the ECJ entrenched.

But those efforts have clearly failed to jolt Parliament into action.

gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com